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Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling my back against a hard chest. I glanced down at those arms, the musculature wrapped in olive skin and dusted with dark hair.

The warmth of his embrace, the beat of his heart against my back, the hum in my blood, all of it promising that I’d finally found him. He was here. The guardian I’d been chasing.

My heart soared, and I tried to turn in his arms, but they tightened, allowing me no leeway to move. “Michio? Let me see you.”

“Shhh.” He breathed against my ear and yanked the bow from my hand, tossing it away.

“Wait!” I jerked against him, unable to wriggle an inch. “What the fuck?”

He hauled me higher up his body, and my feet lost purchase. He flipped me over his shoulder, knocking the wind from my lungs and wrenching the quiver from my back. I got a glimpse of his cropped black hair, then the ground was spinning. We were moving, racing away.

My first thought was that he was carrying me to safety like some chauvinistic barbarian, but when I lifted my head and found Jesse and Roark, dread sank deep into my core.

They sprinted after us, their devastated eyes locked on mine and their mouths moving, shouting… They were too far away, the distance between us stretching, the street blurring into the horizon.

They vanished from view in the span of a heartbeat, but I was already shoving, twisting my body, and screaming. “Put me down! I can’t leave them. They’re going to die back there!”

The neighborhood spiraled around me, morphing into commercial buildings, the main drag of Grain Valley streaking by. Fucking hell, he’d taken me too far from them.

“Put me the fuck down, goddammit!” I smashed my fists against the bare skin on his back, bucking against his clutch on my legs.

He was too strong, moving too damned fast.

I stretched for the sleeve of my jacket to yank it up and release a blade. “Stop. Stop right now!”

Before I reached my arm sheath, he stopped, and my neck whiplashed as he dumped me on my ass. Raising my head, I glimpsed nothing but corn fields, which meant we were miles from the battle.

My eyes traveled over his crisp, black fatigues, the ridges of muscle of his broad torso, and landed on his unreadable expression. He didn’t appear to be further evolved or mutated. No wings. His fangs were hidden behind the flat line of his mouth.

Wasn’t he happy to see me? Why was he just standing there, staring? Staring but not really seeing?

He was the master of blank faces, but this…this wasn’t the man I remembered. I wanted to hug him, kiss him, and tell him how much I missed him, but his eyes held nothing. No thought. No emotion. They were clear and brown and hollow.

My heart ached for agonizing seconds before I shoved it away with thoughts of Jesse and Roark fighting for their lives.

I climbed to my feet and gripped his hands where they dangled at his sides. “Michio? We have to go back.”

Nothing. Not even a blink.

“Are you okay? How did you find me? Who are those men attacking us? Have you seen the Drone?” When he didn’t respond, a tremor rippled through me, and my throat sealed up. “You need to take me back. Our guys are getting slaughtered. We have to help Jesse and Roark!”

Frustration burned up my cheeks. I yanked my hands away, fisting them at my sides. “Say something, goddammit!”

Slowly, he lifted his arms and cupped my shoulders. I searched his face for a glimmer of something. A twitch of humanity. A trace of love.

One of his hands lifted so fast I didn’t see it until it struck against the side of my neck. Shock gripped my body. There were nerves in the neck…lots of nerves…and pressure…

Stars blotted my vision, swallowing Michio’s heartless expression until there was only darkness.

I woke with a throbbing ache behind my eyes, lying on my side and curled in a ball. Chilly wind blasted my hair into my face. The rumble of an engine vibrated my bones, and the steel floor clattered with movement.

I was moving.

With a jolt, I sat up, dizzy and alone. Icy gusts slammed against the back of my head. I reached out to brace myself. My hands bumped into wire walls, and I blinked, groggy and confused.

Terror clawed through my insides as I looked around. I was trapped. Caged in a chain-linked box in the back of a pickup truck and speeding through the night.

Chains tethered the cage securely to the truck bed, and a padlock hung from the sturdy door. My heart raced, magnifying the ache in my head. No water, no blankets, nothing occupied the 3x5 foot space but me.

Grasping at the sleeves of my leather jacket, I yanked them up. My arm sheathes were gone. Tremors surged through my hands. Unarmed. Confined.